Zbigniew Brzezinski
It is important to ask ourselves, as citizens, whether a world power can provide global leadership on the basis of fear and anxiety.Collection: Leadership
Americans don't learn about the world; they don't study world history, other than American history in a very one-sided fashion, and they don't study geography.Collection: History
We have actually experienced in recent months a dramatic demonstration of an unprecedented intelligence failure, perhaps the most significant intelligence failure in the history of the United States.Collection: Failure
Anniversaries are like birthdays: occasions to celebrate and to think ahead, usually among friends with whom one shares not only the past but also the future.Collection: Anniversary
We cannot have that relationship if we only dictate or threaten and condemn those who disagree.Collection: Relationship
But if Russia is to be part of this larger zone of peace it cannot bring into it its imperial baggage. It cannot bring into it a policy of genocide against the Chechens, and cannot kill journalists, and it cannot repress the mass media.Collection: Peace
We should be therefore supporting a larger Europe, and in so doing we should strive to expand the zone of peace and prosperity in the world which is the necessary foundation for a stable international system in which our leadership could be fruitfully exercised.Collection: Leadership
Peace between Israel and Palestine would be a giant step toward greater regional stability, and it would finally let both Israelis and Palestinians benefit from the Middle East's growing wealth.Collection: Peace
In Iraq we must succeed. Failure is not an option.Collection: Failure
Eurasia is the world's axial supercontinent. A power that dominated Eurasia would exercise decisive influence over two of the world's three most economically productive regions: Western Europe and East Asia.Collection: Power
To increase the zone of peace is to build the inner core of a stable international zone.Collection: Peace
I think it is important to ask ourselves as citizens, not as Democrats attacking the administration, but as citizens, whether a world power can really provide global leadership on the basis of fear and anxiety?Collection: Leadership
Look at Islam in a rational manner and without demagoguery or emotion. It is the leading religion of the world with 1.5 billion followers.Collection: Religion
The worsening of relations between a declining America and an internally troubled Mexico could even give rise to a particularly ominous phenomenon: the emergence, as a major issue in nationalistically aroused Mexican politics, of territorial claims justified by history and ignited by cross-border incidents.Collection: Politics
Sometimes in international politics, the better part of wisdom is to defer dangers rather than try to eliminate them altogether instantly.Collection: Politics
The first and most important is to emphasize the enduring nature of the alliance relationship particularly with Europe which does share our values and interests even if it disagrees with us on specific policies.Collection: Relationship
I think we have to pay attention to the Arab masses not just in the Gulf States, but also in the hinterlands.
You know who's messianic? Netanyahu, because he talks that way. And that's a very risky position.
There's no point considering something which is very unrealistic.
Being a former first lady doesn't prepare you to be president.
We now have the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam war.
We need to ask who is the enemy, and the enemies are terrorists.
According to the official version of history, CIA aid to the Mujahadeen began during 1980, that is to say, after the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan, 24 Dec 1979.
The United States should not engage in tit-for-tat polemics directed at its most important allies. That is as demeaning as it is destructive.
If we end up with war in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran at the same time, can anyone see a more damaging prospect for America's world role than that?
America's victory in the Cold War was not without painful social costs.
Palestinian terrorism has to be rejected and condemned, yes. But it should not be translated defacto into a policy of support for a really increasingly brutal repression, colonial settlements and a new wall.
A waning United States would likely be more nationalistic, more defensive about its national identity, more paranoid about its homeland security, and less willing to sacrifice resources for the sake of others' development.
Japan needs the American market and it also needs American security protection. Japan also needs America as the necessary stabilizer of an orderly world system with economies truly open to international trade.
Given the accelerating velocity of history, we should begin charting deliberately the next phase in its trajectory.
It is said that the West had a global policy in regard to Islam. That is stupid. There isn't a global Islam.
As America's nuclear strategic monopoly faded, the United States sought to create advantages elsewhere, notably in the peaceful cooperation between the United States and communist China under Deng Xiaoping.
The public has been told repeatedly that terrorism is 'evil,' which it undoubtedly is, and that 'evildoers' are responsible for it, which doubtless they are. But beyond these justifiable condemnations, there is a historical void.
Waging a colonial war in the post-colonial age is self-defeating.
Basically, I see Iran as an authentic nation-state. And that authentic identity gives it cohesion, which most of the Middle East lacks.
During the nineteenth century, men died believing in the cause of royalty or republicanism. In reality, much of their sacrifice was rendered on the altar of the new nationalism.
The external Soviet empire lasted 45 years. It is shattered, beyond redemption or repair.
Moderation and bipartisan consensus go hand in hand.
Sovereignty is a word that is used often but it has really no specific meaning. Sovereignty today is nominal. Any number of countries that are sovereign are sovereign only nominally and relatively.
Bipartisanship helps to avoid extremes and imbalances. It causes compromises and accommodations. So let's cooperate.
I realise that in an electoral campaign, you don't want to antagonise large groups which are highly motivated.
I don't approve of the notion that we should be announcing who should step down from the position of a head of a state unless we are seriously prepared to remove that person. But if we are not, if we are being prudent and careful, then let's also be careful with how we talk.
Indeed, for almost 10 years, Moscow had to carry on a war unsupportable by the government, a conflict that brought about the demoralization and finally the breakup of the Soviet empire.
We don't have a public that really understands the world anymore, and in the age of complexity, that problem becomes much more difficult.
American power worldwide is at its historic zenith.
A Russia that gradually begins to gravitate toward the West will also be a Russia that ceases to disrupt the international system.
I would like to promote internal change in Iran - which is more likely if we don't fuse Iranian nationalism with Iranian fundamentalism.
War on terrorism defines the central preoccupation of the United States in the world today, and it does reflect in my view a rather narrow and extremist vision of foreign policy of the world's first superpower, of a great democracy, with genuinely idealistic traditions.
Human affairs require some combination of moral commitment with disciplined political action. And that is what keeps me intrigued and challenged and wanting to influence events.
If we slide into a pattern of just thinking about today, we'll end up reacting to yesterday instead of shaping something more constructive in the world.